About 9 months ago I made the switch from being a Windows user to an Apple one. I originally made the move because I wanted to develop software for the iPhone and iPad, which is something that should be done inside OSX. The idea was that you can easily use Windows inside OSX, but the other way ‘round isn’t so practical. I’m quite a proficient Windows user; I remember when Windows 95 came out, and have been using it quite extensively ever since. I had wanted to do this since mid 2009, but moving to Apple can really add up, money wise. All in all, I’ve spent about £4000 on apple equipment when I could have spent less than half that by using Windows and Android. I came into a few bob and thought, “Let’s do this schizniss”.

How I became a ‘MacFag’.

Turn the clock back 3 years and I was with my girlfriend at the time. I really wanted an iPod Touch, thought it would be a handy PDA, as well as the music and video functions. I wasn’t “allowed” to buy it, on fear of being made homeless in a strange city. Well, what is a boy to do? eBay that MoFo so it’s waiting on the doorstep when I came home. I arrived home to find my shiny brushed-metal goodness, and that was my first affair with Apple. It was amazing and new, I could read the news on the tube while listening to music. I could tweet and facebook to my heart’s content in the local coffee shop. I was no longer late for appointments as I now had a calendar I was willing to use. I was completely besotted by this gadget equivalent to a 19 year old who won the lotto and enjoyed Hollyoaks and Chinese food…. And you know what? I think if it’s possible, it was slightly besotted with me.

I found I used it so much and it was so handy, that when I accidently lost it, I bought another one two weeks later. My phone contract then came up and a month later the iPhone 3GS was due out, well, I thought it was time to take the relationship to the next level. Roll forward a year and I have an i7 Macbook Pro, an iPhone 4* and an American 32gb Wifi iPad too.
*See the section on how to get the latest iPhone year on year without it costing you much at all for the upgrade ,)
Awesome things to do on your iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch [and/or] iPad).

First up, syncing contacts, calendar and mail is really cool. There are quite a few people who do this now, but I choose Google as my main service. I migrated from Hotmail to Google Mail for this, which at the time was a synch because for £25 you could get Hotmail to take a few valium about you leaving them, where as now that isn’t such a sure thing.
This means that when I update my calendar, contacts or mail in one place… like add a new event or read an email, it’s updated everywhere else. It’s a little bit technical, but fear not, the lovely people at Google have instructions on how to get this bad boy off the road.


Just follow the easy to use instructions on here: www.google.com/mobile/sync/

Custom Ringtones and Alarm Tones on iPhone !

The next one is ringtones. Everyone in my office seems to have the default ringtones for their iPhones; something that most people seem to have. You can use these ringtones for Alarms too, but alas, not text messages (I dream of the day when I can have the Zelda ‘Open Crate’ sound for a text message… why am I single again?).

It’s a bit complicated, but once you’ve done your first one, the next one is piss easy. Your friendly neighbourhood geekologist has written up a guide here: blog.90nz0.com/2010/08/02/how-to-bung-your-own-ringtones-on-the-iphone-with-just-itune-works-in-itunes-9-2010/

Did you know that you can also use your device to play movies and television on your telly? Well, you can do that too… blog.90nz0.com/2010/03/25/video-to-iphone-to-telly/

… In update to that, since I wrote that guide, there is an app called Plex and VLC, which is something I’m going to write about in the future. It kicks seven shades of shit out of Sky TV, Virgin TV and to a lesser extent, XMBC/Boxee…. Plex is also coming to the new AppleTV, which makes it worth buying in my books.

Features I miss in Windows 7 that have been bought to OSX

Aero Snap - use SizeUp in OSX

The first one is something called Aero Snap. I still can’t quite work out how Full Screen works on OSX, it’s different to Windows, but there is some software out there called SizeUp. It’s a freebie for the most part, but well worth parting with the cash for when you use it. I assign a few shortcuts and suddenly what I’m looking at takes up the left/right/bottom/top half of the screen, I can then do the same thing with something else, and wallah, I got two things side-by-side. So for example, I currently have MS Word on the left half of my screen, and a web browser on the right. And they say blokes can’t multitask.

http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/

Aero Peek - Use Hyperdock

The next one is something that Windows calls Aero Peek. This means when I hover over an item in the task bar, I get a little preview of all the windows in that application. In practical use, it means instead of clicking on the application and then clicking ‘window’ -> [name of window], I can go straight to the window I want! It has other features like when I hover over iTunes; I can change the track around. I understand that it doesn’t sound helpful, but seriously, it is.

hyperdock.bahoom.de/

Windows Media Centre - Use Plex

Did you know that your Apple computer makes probably one of the best media centres money can buy? I was planning to buy a cheap second hand MacMini and using it just for this software called Plex, but now they’ve managed to get it up and running on AppleTV, well, for £99 bucks, it seems like the better option.

www.plexapp.com

Wrap Up

So, here I’ve written up how to fix the “Bubbly Personality” and “I lyk 2 walk n da park” issues of the Apple world, at least for me. If you find this guide handy, please feel free to leave a comment or pass it onto people you know are interested. I’ll be writing up more stuff, plus I have a few recipes to get blogging in the future. Soz for the neglect of my blog, but I’ve been Busy Busy Busy, started a new totally awesome new job and I’ve been full-on social mode over the past few months.


Anyway, L8erz p0t4t4z.